


i killed a man there, in spite, and when he died, i took his place

by cosmicpoet



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Simulation, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 16:38:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13011840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicpoet/pseuds/cosmicpoet
Summary: It's been ten years since Nagito and Hajime woke up from the Neo-World Program. Ten years is nothing to them; every day is a battle between what is real and what they need to ignore. Soon enough, they'll ignore everything, but Nagito isn't there yet. He's just contemplating, on a cold winter morning, what the world would be without him.





	i killed a man there, in spite, and when he died, i took his place

Should, at a little past five in the morning on this faint, dark morning, a stranger look up to the top floor of the most uninteresting apartment block, they would see one, solitary window hanging open. Surely, they may reason, a madman lives there, immune to the cold; or someone so disentangled with reality that an open window on a sub-zero December morning isn’t even a mild inconvenience.

This is what runs through Nagito’s mind as he leans, alone and half-awake, on the windowsill. He’s already contemplated the drop below as a possibility – not a tangible fact, but at least a little down on a list of opportunities – and now he’s thinking of everybody except himself. It’s snowing, not gently, like the cold, winter sun, but harshly; falling fast, freezing, inescapable. Sticking his hand out into the air, he plunges it directly into the mounted pile just a little below him, untouched and blanketing the small ledge.

It hurts, naturally. But after a moment, once his eyes are closed and his breath once more steady, his hand becomes so numb that he could conceivably stay here forever. This makes him laugh. Pale enough to be a statue, now he’s thinking of how long it would take for him to become immobilised by ice, merely a forgotten remnant of history.

Still, the morning is calling, and he has yet to answer. The street below is starting to come to life; dreary eyed passers-by taking in their lives and _only_ their lives. It’s not enough for him to wish he were one of them.

After a moment, reality, which he has been ignoring since he awoke an hour earlier, hits him. He feels _selfish_ for having the window open so early on such a cold day – when Hajime is still sleeping on the other, warmer side of the bed. Hastily, he shuts it, albeit quietly. When he walks into the kitchen, the stark contrast of temperature causes his hand to turn a blistering red, flecked with harsh spots of white. Considering the abuse his body goes through daily, this isn’t a worry to him at all – however, he’s glad that Hajime is still asleep, and not awake to waste his worries on something so unimportant.

The Neo-World Program was ten years ago. Ten years of readjusting to society, of learning how to build back trust on a foundation of lies; it seemed easier with Hajime, but with the rest of them, his heart still hurts when they don’t reply to his messages. Why would they? They’re all going through the same thing. But Junko Enoshima is dead. The world is real. He tells himself this every day.

Basic, human needs seem a world away. He isn’t hungry, or thirsty; despite having slept little over five hours in the past week, he doesn’t want to collapse into bed. Logically, he knows why. Sleep reminds him, as it does Hajime, of being in a coma, and being in a coma reminds him of waking up when he thought that finally, _finally,_ he didn’t have to anymore.

It’s a miracle that they’ve both survived this long, even just barely. Clinging onto each other like they’re fake, like they’re created just for each other – it’s nice not to be real. But the world is real. And Junko Enoshima is dead. And hope won.

 _Hope._ Even the word tastes foreign in his mouth. The ideal that he thought he could die for – that he thought he _had_ died for – reminds him now of the terrible role he made himself play. That little box he forced himself into because it was easier to die for a falsity than live alongside people he was comparatively worthless against. And then Hajime’s secret was revealed, and his life-philosophy began to crack, but he was in too deep by that point. But now, he only exists in the depths of liminal confusion.

Frequently, his mind finds itself back at the warehouse. Times like this are inevitable, but no less painful despite ten years having passed. When he’s alone, as he is now, the choking of the flames tears his throat apart just as much as it did back in the simulation; the rips in his jeans can no longer be picked at with fumbling hands, but the sunken, jagged wounds underneath feel more real than ever. Just as it was back then, he still cannot scream.

Right now, there’s no poison to promise him an end. It was all false anyway – the only true hope he had was that of death, and even that turned out to be one grand lie. Still, the thought of an impending end, however real, seems like heaven in this moment.

Before he knows it, an hour has passed and he’s on the bathroom floor. Mental blocks are to be expected – at least that’s what his therapist had told him upon emerging from the simulation. But now, they’re no less frequent than they were before. He forgets how he gets from one place to another, whether he’s eaten or slept, whether he’s real. It reminds him of his old diagnosis; and this thought grasps its icy hands around his heart and pulls until he may as well be back in the warehouse, for he can no longer breathe anyway.

But the bathroom is good. The bathroom is real. The world is real, Junko Enoshima is dead, and the bathroom is good. He knows why the bathroom is good; the same reason that Hajime thinks the bathroom is bad. There’s always something in there to kill himself with. Sometimes, there’s a danger that he’ll stoop as low as to drink a cocktail of everything not safe for consumption in there. Hajime tried to protect him for years, but they’re both weary of trust, and hope, and all they have left is the wonder of which one will bleed out on the bathroom floor first.

This is real.

He’s fumbling through cupboards now, looking for the razor Hajime uses to keep his hair relatively short. They both know why – and Nagito, for a moment, feels utterly selfish once more for making it all about himself yet again. But there’s little else to be done, once he’s found it, and he’s staring at it, daring himself both to make a move and to hang on a little longer in the in-between almost-reality.

Then, Hajime is behind him, pulling him back to bed. Neither of them are scared, or worried. All intense emotion is spent, but it’s still early in the morning; the window is shut, and the bed awaits.

“You cold?” Hajime asks.

“No,” Nagito replies.

“Too warm?”

“No.”

“Good. Let’s go to sleep again. It’ll still be real in the afternoon."

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked this! It's just a super quick little thing, because I haven't written for this pairing before :D
> 
> Title from 'Goodnight Chicago' by RKS.


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